


Serpents

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: Anaconda (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Seduction, Dubious Consent, F/M, Peril, Rough Sex, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:14:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25398235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Summary: Terri's attempt to distract Paul so Danny and Warren can subdue him doesn't go quite as planned.
Relationships: Terri Flores/Paul Serone (Anaconda (Movies))
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	Serpents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StopTalkingAtMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/gifts).



When Paul opened the door to the wheelhouse, Terri slipped inside and said she wanted to talk. Only when she closed the door did she realize how badly she had hoped he would wave her away and refuse to let her in.

That wouldn’t have helped their cause, but it would have kept her from being in the position of seducing him while waiting for Danny and Warren to attack.

She fed Paul some lines about how the trip was supposed to be her big break, true but unimportant now, and how maybe filming him capturing his big-ass snake would take the place of the film about the tribe. He seemed to believe her. 

Still no sign of Danny or Warren. Where the hell were they? If she noticed them, though, Paul surely would, too. 

Being this close to Paul, playing the delicate, wilting flower who needed his protection, didn’t sit right with her. And a huge part of that was because being this close to him wasn’t anything like she’d imagined. She’d noticed him watching her, the way he didn’t just look at her but examined her and weighed her up. That’s what gave her the idea. And Danny had hated all of it. 

“ _Distract_ him?” Danny had said. “Ain’t no way I’m going to let you put yourself on some kind of silver platter for that man.”

“You don’t get to decide what I do, Danny. Maybe I’ll go in there and start juggling or do a two-step, ever think of that? Distraction is distraction.”

Danny’s frown had deepened, but Warren had started laughing. Terri and Danny stared at him until he stopped. 

“What? You can’t present a man with an image like that and not expect him to be amused. Though I think a card trick or two might seem less conspicuous.” 

Warren had put his hands up when they’d both started to speak at the same time. “I know. I know. Terri, I don’t like the idea of you having to . . . _compromise_ yourself in any way, either. But we’ll be there before anything untoward happens, that’s the point.” He’d looked at Danny with an upturned brow that perfectly fit the pomp English attitude she’d often rolled her eyes at during the first couple of days they’d been on this boat together. Since then, it had grown on her.

Danny sighed and stared at a spot near their feet. “If nobody has a better idea, then I guess we’ll go with that.”

“It’s a grand idea,” Warren said. “And I certainly don’t have a better one. Aside from us storming the wheelhouse in a bold, chaotic attack during which at least one of us is bound to get shot. If he’s focused on Terri, we can get him.” Warren had put a hand on each of their shoulders in some kind of Three Musketeers moment, which actually warmed Terri and made her feel a bit safer. 

Denise had done nothing more than sit on the deck, knees to chest, rocking and watching the water as if Gary might pop up at any moment and declare his death one big misunderstanding. They hadn’t talked to her about their plan. Best just to let her grieve in her way and not trouble her with more than she was already dealing with.

All that felt like it had happened days ago.

Now that Terri stood with her breasts pressed against Paul’s chest, she wished Danny had protested a little harder and they’d had to come up with something else. Because the moment she started talking about her movie and her big break, she thought of the snake, its massive head crashing through the glass to get to her, its eyes staring deep into her, and a tiny part of her wondered if filming Paul catching the snake, or trying, wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing. 

As terrified as she had been, she couldn’t look away. If she could make a movie that captured even a little of that . . .

“You need protection?” Paul mumbled down at her. 

She nodded, trying her best to appear small and frightened, something he might want to protect and keep close to himself. 

“It’s been a long time . . . since I had a woman,” he said. 

Terri pressed her body against his and lifted her face in invitation. He stared down at her for only a moment, his eyes as hard and piercing as the eyes of the anaconda, and she knew she’d been wrong about how much he would hate this. Her skin should be crawling, not breaking out in gooseflesh, in anticipation. 

Paul sank his fingers into her hair and pulled her mouth against his, rough but not threatening. Not brutal. _Just right_ flashed through her mind before she made herself picture Steven in his bed, the bandage around his throat, still needing a hospital as soon as they could get him to one. 

_I’m doing this for you, baby._

Paul’s tongue slid into her mouth, and a line of heat ran down her body as his fingers tightened in her hair. He broke the kiss and stared down at her, licking his lips. 

“I’ll protect you,” he said, with a tiny smile that still had a hint of deception in it. She’d never seen anyone who could look that perpetually smug. Maybe that was just his face. He was probably a hell of a poker player. 

“Yeah?” she breathed, high-pitched and helpless, arching her neck a little more, inviting him to kiss her again. But instead, his grip in her hair tightened, and he pushed his hips forward so she could feel how hard he was. 

“You’re smart. Ambitious. I like that. I’ll protect you because I like you.” He fully grinned then, still smug but something more, like he’d told a great joke and waited for her to laugh at it. 

She didn’t.

“Not because you fuck me.” He kissed her again, deeper, spinning them so she faced the opposite direction,and her arms wrapped tight around him to keep her balance.

Both his hands slid beneath her shirt and crawled up her sweaty sides. She gasped against his lips, her hand sinking into his hair where it was gathered into a thin ponytail. When his hand cupped her breast, his calloused skin scratching hers as his thumb raked across her nipple, she shuddered and arched into the touch. A whimper caught in her throat. 

She pulled away and stumbled a step backwards that wasn’t far enough to remove her from his arms. For a few seconds she’d forgotten Danny and Warren were even supposed to be there to stop this. _Where the fuck are they?_

Paul cocked his head and frowned. “Change your mind?” He grinned and licked his bottom lip. 

She shook her head, trying to find the words, trying to ignore the heat that had built between her legs. “No. No, I just . . . you’re a little . . . overwhelming.”

For once, his expression gave him away. He liked that, a lot. “You’re not used to a man like me, who does what he wants,” he boasted. 

He grabbed her hips and lifted her, backing her up so that her ass sat on the lip of the console that housed most of the controls and equipment. “A man who conquers what he goes after.”

He squeezed her breasts and kissed her until Danny and Warren shouted from the deck. His smug half-smile returned, his eyes narrowed. “Whatever could that be, you think?” He chewed the inside of one cheek, as Danny’s voice got louder, and then Warren’s. He nodded in a knowing way that unsettled her. “Stay here.”

He lowered her to the ground, and swung open the door to the wheelhouse. Terri followed closely, crowding him through it. “I want to know what’s happening. Maybe I can help.”

He pushed her back into the small enclosure. “Which is it?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “You want to help, or you want my protection? Stay here.”

Had Danny and Warren decided against attacking him in the wheelhouse like they’d planned? Should she follow in case they couldn’t subdue him, or was something actually wrong? If things didn’t go as planned and she stayed there, at least Paul would probably trust she wasn’t in on it, and they’d have another chance to stop him. If she went and it all went wrong, then what? 

After a few seconds of continued shouting, she went down. Danny and Warren weren’t attacking Paul. Before she could ask what was happening, Danny said _fuck it_ and jumped into the water. Paul and Warren shone lights onto the surface. 

“I told you to stay,” Paul said when she moved between him and Warren. 

“I’m not a dog. I don’t take commands,” she said, and when he smiled at her, she said, “What’s going on?”

Warren, his voice shaking, said, “Denise jumped in, shouting about finding Gary herself. She’s lost it, Terri. Completely fucking lost it.”

Jesus. They should never have left her alone. “Denise!” Terri shouted, along with Warren.

Paul shouted, “Come on back, Danny. Lost cause.” Then he shook his head and chewed his lower lip. “Too bad, Baby Bird.”

 _Push him. Push him in_. Terri put her hand on Paul’s back, leaned toward the water like she was trying to see better. Maybe if she shoved him in, they could keep him from getting back onto the boat long enough for his snake to come along and solve their problems for them. 

She took a deep breath. Another. Could she kill this man? There had to be a better way, didn’t there? She thought of Steven. Thought of Gary. Exhaled. 

She couldn’t do it.

Denise’s head broke the surface, closer to the boat than Danny, her arm flailing and splashing. “Gary!” she wailed, sobbing and choking on water. Warren made a sound next to Terri, like he might be drowning or crying along with her. Danny swam her direction. 

Paul jumped in. 

_What the hell?_

Warren spun and grabbed Terri’s arms. “Go to the wheelhouse or to watch over Steven. Just go.”

How could she leave now, with both Denise and Danny in the water, and Paul about to do . . . what? What the hell _was_ he doing? 

“You might need my help, to calm down Denise if nothing else. Wait, is Denise part of your plan? Did she risk jumping in to--”

“No, she truly has gone off the deep end, that’s what delayed us. Please, Terri,” Warren begged. “No matter what happens now, it’ll be better if you go.” He didn’t have to add what she knew he was thinking. _In case this doesn’t work._

They trusted her to do her part, so the least she could is let them do theirs. It should be easy for them to jump him as he got back into the boat. 

Paul had a hold of Denise, who’d stopped fighting and seemed limp in his arms. He swam for the boat. Danny would catch up to them before they were both out of the water. 

She squeezed Warren’s hand and went to look in on Steven. His breathing was steadier, and he drank if you lifted his head gently to give him small sips. He was improving, but not fast enough to suit her. She stroked his brow and tried to think of anything but how it had felt to have Paul’s hands on her, to have him look at her the way he had. 

At least ten minutes had passed before Terri had to see what was happening. She found Denise gone, Danny unconscious and tied to a post and Warren laid out on the deck, his wrists and ankles tied. She ran to him and shook his shoulders. Blood dampened his hair on the left side of his head, just behind his temple and ran down his cheek. 

“Warren, wake _up!_ ” 

Paul’s voice rang out behind her. 

“Looks worse than it is. I didn't hit him that hard, but you know a head wound bleeds."

Terri wiped the blood of Warren's cheek and checked his pulse. He seemed okay. Danny didn't look bloody, just unconscious. "What did you do to them?"

"You wouldn’t believe what they tried to do to me.” He wiped his face with a towel as he walked toward her. “I saved Baby Bird, and they attacked me for it.”

He dropped into a squat so he and Terri were face to face. “Can you imagine such a thing?”

“They don’t trust you. You can’t really blame them for that.” If Paul believed she was on his side, they still had a chance. _That’s what I’m going to tell myself._

He rose to his full height and held out his hand for her. She took it and let him help her up. He didn’t let go. “But you trust me, huh?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “Where’s Denise?”

“Tied in her bed to keep her safe. Mad with grief, that one.” He patted his chest with the towel. “Breaks your heart.”

If he didn’t have that constantly smug expression, she might have believed he truly cared.“I don’t want you to hurt any of them.” She glanced at Danny and Warren. 

“They don’t try to hurt me, I don’t hurt them. Fair is fair.” 

“What about Gary? He’d be alive if you hadn’t--”

“Ah, ah.” He snapped his finger back and forth. “If I hadn’t what? You were the one who decided to stay here.”

“You said the lights were smart, that it was a good idea!”

“It was, since you decided that we’d stay. But I wasn’t the one who kept us in this spot, remember. That was all you.” 

“You stopped me from shooting when Gary--”

“He was already dead. None of us could have saved him then.”

Damn him. “Why’d you jump in to save Denise when you wouldn’t go after Mateo?”

He shrugged. “Mateo wouldn’t answer. He was beyond help. Denise popped up like a cork, right over there,” he said, gesturing at the water. “What kind of a man would I be to ignore that, hm? You think I’d let her drown?”

Terri had thought he might. “It would make things simpler for you.”

“She’d done nothing to me. I might have done different if she’d tried to hurt me. An eye for an eye.” The corners of his mouth turned down and he tugged her hand to follow him. 

He led her back into the wheelhouse and opened his trunk to pull out a dry shirt and trousers. Then he peeled his wet T-shirt off and handed her the thick, incredibly soft towel he’d used to wipe his face. It was probably Warren’s, she idly realized. 

“Care to help me out?” he said, his mouth barely moving. 

_He’s called my bluff. There’s no one to stop this now._ Even if she “changed her mind” like he’d said earlier, would he care? 

Terri pressed the towel against his chest and slowly began to dry him. She scrambled for something, anything, to get him talking and forestall what she knew was coming. “I find it hard to believe you were a priest.”

He grunted. 

“If you’re not a failed priest, why aren’t you praying in a church somewhere?”

“Not a failed priest, but a disillusioned one.” He slid his hand up and down her forearm, so she moved to stand behind him and dry his back. 

“Disillusioned . . . about what?”

“Many things. Discovered that priests are just men, and often the ones trying the hardest to hide their devils from the world.” He took a deep breath and let his head tilt back, his eyes closed. “They don’t serve God, but mammon, and if I’m going to do that I’ll do it on my own terms, find my own glory.”

She rubbed the towel against the back of his neck, and he whispered, “Pride goeth before a fall. But I’d rather throw myself down than be tripped.”

He pulled off the rest of his wet clothes so that he stood naked before her. Scars lined the left side of his ribcage, scars similar to that on the side of his face. One rib must have broken at some point and healed wrong because the bone pressed a bulge into his skin. His cock was thick and long, and hung half-hard between his legs. 

Terri should have been repulsed by this man, by the idea of his body against hers. Why wasn’t she? 

“Pride?” she said, still hoping to delay anything that might happen. Maybe he’d just want to talk? “Is that why you’re a poacher, hunting this snake? You think capturing it will bring you that glory?”

“Yes, but more than that, it’s vengeance.” He grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her against him. “I was still a priest when my brother sent message after message about that snakeskin I showed you, how he thought it was _Titanoboa Cerrejonensis_. Ridiculous, eh? The largest serpent known to man, extinct maybe fifty million years before the first ape walked upright. Yet my brother was obsessed with it, swore it was here. I came to help him. It got him before I arrived.”

“But you said it was worth a lot of money.”

“It is. Mostly I mentioned the money to try to get you all on board.” He rubbed the thumb and fingers of one hand together. “Gary understood that language.”

She flinched at his name. “You really expect me to believe the money means nothing to you?”

“It means plenty to me, but it’s not the most important thing. I promised on my brother’s empty grave that I’d catch this bitch. Then maybe he can rest.”

“How noble,” she said without thinking, but her tone was softer than she’d intended. 

His fingers tightened on her arm. “You realize that the serpent’s punishment for tempting Eve was crawling around on its belly for eternity? Before that it walked, talked. It must have been the most magnificent thing in the garden to tempt her into disobeying God.” 

His cocked pressed into her hip, and her back pressed against the console he’d sat her on before. “Can you even imagine it?”

“How can you talk about the serpent in the garden in one breath and evolution in the next? You can't believe both.”

"Everything is open to . . . interpretation." He dipped in and licked up the side of her throat until his lips pressed against her ear. 

She shuddered against him and sucked in a breath. _Keep him talking, Terri._ "You don’t really believe that it’s some kind of devil, do you?"

“You looked into its eyes. And then you come to me for protection.” His fingers curled around the bottom of her shirt and peeled it off, leaving her bare to the waist. He pressed his palms against her breasts and hissed. “What do _you_ think?”

He paused, as if waiting for her answer, so she said, “It’s just a snake.”

He smiled and lifted her again, her legs wrapping around his hips as he latched onto a nipple. He sucked harder than any lover she’d ever had, like he was trying to drain the life force out of her. She cried out at the pain and pleasure of it, her back arching and her fingers digging into his shoulders. 

_This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was never supposed to get this far._

He sucked the other nipple into his mouth, and every pull against it sent a matching throb between her legs. 

He stood back, squinting and scrutinizing her. “You _are_ beautiful,” he said, as if he’d only just realized it. He pulled her forward, dropping her to the floor, then spun her so she could stare out at the night in front of the boat. He yanked her remaining clothing down, and she barely had time to step out of it before his body pressed against hers from behind. He embraced her tightly, his tongue and teeth dragging a trail of heat over her shoulder and up the side of her throat. 

Paul's hand slid down her stomach. His fingertips were so suddenly rough and hard against her clit she flailed an arm and knocked a notebook and a few random things onto the floor. She cried out as he tapped and pressed, the intensity almost too much. His other hand pulled at her nipple and squeezed her breast, every knead and pinch just this side of pain. 

Fingers rubbed inside her, rough and rhythmless, and as she was about to beg him to go easy, he kicked her legs apart with a foot between them and pushed his cock inside her. 

She arched her back and groaned at the sudden fullness, at how hard he was inside her while his fingers drove her mad. He pumped into her, every thrust pushing her forward so that she had to brace her hands against the console to save herself from bruises. 

_She wasn’t supposed to like this. She_ couldn’t _like this._

But he drove little pleasured sounds from her, and when his fingers slapped against her, rubbed her there _just right_ , she made a strangled sound and could only shudder and give herself over to it. 

He grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms behind her back, forcing her to lean forward as he pounded into her. She wanted his fingers back, but the angle and relentlessness of his body colliding with hers was enough. Terri shouted as her muscles tightened and exploded around him. 

Paul growled and fisted her hair to pull her head back, arching her body in a tight curve, and when he let go of her wrists and pressed his fingers between her legs, she exploded again. 

He sucked hard against her neck, then rasped in her ear, “I do love a tough woman.” He pounded into her and froze there, hand still tight in her hair, lips bruising the side of her throat as he groaned. His hips snapped as he rode it out, his fingers dragging one more shout from Terri as she came hard around him for the third time. 

When it was over, when he’d spent himself inside her and her thigh muscles trembled from strain, he let himself slide free of her body. He turned her to face him and stared at her with open admiration, a fingertip slipping into her folds, stroking her oversensitive flesh and making her whole body jerk. 

He grinned, the smug bastard. 

“I’m going to go check on the ungrateful crew and our poor Baby Bird.”

He left her standing there to dress, forcing his still half-hard cock into his pants so he could fasten them. Terri pulled her clothes back on. She shivered as some of her sweat started to dry on her skin, even as humid as the air was that pressed around them. 

He grabbed her by the hair and kissed her the way he had the first time, which seemed like hours ago. “Deep down, we’re all animals. Primal. Good to know what you are. Don’t feel guilty you liked it so much.”

“I don’t,” she said, but he smirked down at her as if he knew better. 

“When I come back, you tell me more about your movie.” He stepped out the door, and she took a deep breath before he popped his head back in and said, “And then we’ll find other ways to pass the time, eh?” He winked and was gone. 

Terri faced front, peering into the darkness at the black water, wondering if the snake had been there this whole time, watching, waiting, maybe knowing Paul had come for it and why. 

She laughed at herself and shook off that paranoia. Then she thought of how to block out shots of the snake, how best to get some facing footage without putting anyone at risk. 

After several minutes passed and she realized she hadn’t spent a moment making a plan to knock out Paul and free Danny and Warren, she pressed her fists against the console and closed her eyes. 

Paul wouldn’t hurt any of them unless they threatened him again. And if they caught the snake the way Paul planned, none of them would be in danger anymore. Once they had the footage, and she’d make sure all of them were credited in the final film including Mateo and Gary, they’d understand how much all their sacrifice had been worth. If they were stuck in this situation, why should they come out of it empty-handed?

She pressed her fingers between her legs, ashamed of the soft ache and throb there.

 _I’m only doing this to stay alive. To keep my friends alive._ _To survive._

Terri was still repeating those words to herself when Paul came back with a bottle of Warren’s wine.


End file.
